It’s the UFC’s 20th anniversary this week, so naturally we’re celebrating with a highly anticipated welterweight showdown at UFC 167.

That gives us plenty to discuss in this week’s Twitter Mailbag, though we’ll also carve out some space for Bellator’s big move on Ben Askren, and what it means for Miesha Tate to get more online votes than Ronda Rousey. Plus some other stuff, too.

To ask a question of your own, hit up @benfowlkesMMA on Twitter. Occasionally, there might even be a prize in it for you.

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@benfowlkesMMA Do you think Hendricks is GSP’s toughest opponent to date? Or does he present the same challenges as, say, Koscheck did? #TMB

Johny Hendricks presents many of the same challenges that Josh Koscheck did, but I think what really excites people here is the variable provided by punching power. Koscheck could swat when he had to, but he didn’t have that one-punch dynamite that Hendricks has. He also didn’t have that same belligerent willingness to get right in your face and make you do something. Hendricks has both, plus some genuine wrestling credentials, and on paper that all seems to be a troubling combination for a guy like Georges St-Pierre – especially if he does indeed have one eye on the door. I don’t know if that makes Hendricks the toughest challenge for GSP, or merely another tough challenge in a title reign full of them. I do know that it’s the most interesting fight you could possibly make at welterweight right now, and I can’t wait to see it.

@benfowlkesMMA what does Askren’s release say about future of Bellator? Particularly in the wake of their most recent UFC vet signings?

In some ways, Ben Askren is the test case for a longtime MMA hypothetical: What if there was a fighter who was better than everybody, yet nobody actually wanted to see him fight? What would become of him? Could disinterest alone run him out of the sport? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody cares because the tree has a boring style and an awkward personality, does it really make a sound?

This is a problem unique to combat sports. A football team doesn’t care if you think its quarterback is boring. As long as he keeps winning, people will keep showing up. Not so in MMA, where you’re selling the sizzle as much as the steak. As we’ve seen, fighters deemed exciting or popular get better opportunities in this sport, and they get them faster and easier than the ones labeled boring. We accept that to some extent (the promoters are, after all, pandering to us), but how far are we willing to take it? Is it conceivable that a dominant fighter could be gradually blackballed due to a lack of interest? And if so, wouldn’t that be just about the saddest damn thing you could imagine?

In that sense, it almost feels like a moral imperative for the UFC to sign Askren and let nature take its course. If he becomes UFC welterweight champion, fine. If his fights are all five-round snoozefests that the UFC can’t give away on free TV, that’s fine too. Or, well, not fine exactly, but better than the alternative. Because, especially with all this 20th anniversary nostalgia love going on, we should remember the idea this sport ostensibly started with. We wanted to know who would win if you took the best fighters from all the different disciplines and threw them in a cage together. If we start keeping some people out because we think we already know how it would go and we don’t think we’d like it, maybe that’s when we should pack it in.

As for what this move says about Bellator, there are two ways to think about it. One is to tell ourselves that Bellator did the right, honorable thing by letting its champion move on to the big show, where he might finally be tested. The other is to admit that Bellator couldn’t wait to be rid of Askren. That’s a bummer, but it’s not surprising. Any promotion that thinks Tito Ortiz vs. “Rampage” Jackson is a main event bout in 2013 has long since given up on the idea that great fighters bring great success.

@benfowlkesMMA#TMB Say George does retire Sat like his mentor predicts, Condit vs Rory is obviously best case scenario for vacant title no?

First of all, let’s stop trying to predict what St-Pierre will do based on what his friend and his coach and his neighbor and his dry cleaner and his Twitter ghost writer say he will do. He can make his own decisions, and a lot will probably depend on how this fight with Hendricks goes. Similarly, the future of the welterweight class after he’s gone will depend on how these next few high-profile fights go. Rory MacDonald could get knocked stiff by Robbie Lawler (who’s made a habit of that sort of thing throughout his career), and Carlos Condit could get beaten down by Matt Brown (who’s been beating down a lot of people lately), and then what? I’ll tell you then what: welterweight Grand Prix. A guy can dream, anyway.

@benfowlkesMMA#tmb Why would the UFC criticize GSP for increased drug testing then turn around & provide it to Barnett & Browne?

It wasn’t the UFC that decided on increased testing for Josh Barnett. That was the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s call. Apparently when you’ve failed three drug tests over the course of your career, that’s when the commission decides to get serious. But you bring up an interesting point about the UFC’s stance on GSP’s voluntary drug testing. Here you have a champion who’s been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, usually with nothing more than his physique as proof, and he goes out of his way to seek supplemental testing that might put those rumors to rest now, near what we assume is the end of his career. Regardless of whether you think VADA was the best choice to conduct the tests, shouldn’t the UFC at least support the sentiment? Instead, UFC president Dana White writes it off like it’s nothing more than a petty, silly annoyance.

I can understand Hendricks’ concern over GSP’s relationship with VADA (even though Hendricks also tried to make the claim that abs equal evidence in PED accusations. St-Pierre’s reps didn’t do him any favors by backing away from the NSAC’s WADA-certified testing. But mostly, it’s reassuring to me to see that the intention is there, at least on the part of the fighters. It would be nice to see the UFC join that effort, rather than sniping at it from a distance.

@benfowlkesMMA No one could foresee Pettis’ injury, but is UFC in danger of alienating casual fans w/another Fox flyweight main event? #tmb

You can’t start thinking like that if you’re the UFC. You can’t tell yourself that an entire division – even a title fight in that division – is off-limits for network TV because fans just don’t like watching the little guys. Plus, you don’t know. We might get a great fight out of Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez. Even if we don’t, this card still has Carlos Condit vs. Matt Brown, which, on paper, is so awesome it makes my face numb just thinking about it. You leave that fight alone, injury bug. Do you hear me?!? YOU LEAVE IT ALONE!

@benfowlkesMMA Tate beats Rousey in ufc game cover comp. small in terms of actual relevance big in terms of public opinion after TUF??

Maybe I’m just old, but I never would have guessed that so many people would pay such close attention to this little tournament of online voting all to determine who goes on the cover of the UFC’s video game. Back in my day (that’s right, I went there), it was a simple process. The video game people selected their own cover athlete, threw some money at that athlete, then watched from afar as the athlete almost immediately suffered a debilitating injury. I’m not saying it was a perfect system. Now fans have to vote online to determine who makes the cover, and of course we’re going to milk it over several rounds of voting just to make sure each fighter has a chance to thoroughly annoy his or her Twitter followers with pleas for clicks.

But my curmudgeonly rant aside, does it actually mean anything for Miesha Tate to edge out Ronda Rousey in the voting? Tate seems to think so. She said this week that her triumph over the champ in head-to-head voting was consequence of Rousey being “exposed” on this season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” In other words, she thinks Rousey just Matt Hughes’d herself on cable TV, which is to say people liked her before they got to know her. That’s got to be a kind of depressing possibility to consider if you’re Rousey (or Hughes, for that matter). Maybe she’ll just have to comfort herself with the UFC title and a whole bunch of money.

@benfowlkesMMA was not including a women’s bantamweight fight on the 20th anv. card a missed opportunity to showcase the sport’s evolution?

It would have been nice to see a women’s fight on this card. Not only because, as you point out, there’s something poetic about showing how much the UFC has changed and how far it’s come in 20 years, but also because the women’s division is still growing and still in need of exposure. GSP gets people in the door, but he won’t be around forever. Once you have people’s attention, it would have made good sense to show those people what they could look forward to over the next 20 years of the UFC.

@benfowlkesMMA Ronny Jason: suspended for unsportmanlike conduct for obliterating a wall with his elbow after his loss this weekend, fair?

I wouldn’t call it fair or unfair, but rather just plain silly. What’s the point of suspending a guy who got mad and lashed out at a wall? What lesson are you teaching him (or anyone else) that wasn’t already made clear when he had to go to the hospital to get his arm stitched up? Make him pay for the wall if you like. That would be fair. A punishment like this for a post-fight outburst that didn’t affect the competition and didn’t hurt anyone but himself, especially from a commission that apparently has zero qualms with giving a former steroid user an exemption for testosterone, just smacks of a misguided desire to get tough on all the wrong things.

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Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.

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